It is desirable to be able to compare audio reproduction systems and algorithms under realistic conditions, i.e. in the environment where such systems and algorithms are to be used. Such environments could in principle be any listening room, but specific problems are encountered in rooms of very limited dimensions and rooms where significant background noise or other competing sounds are present. An example of an environment of this type is the cabin of an automobile. In recent years audio equipment for use in automobiles has become increasingly sophisticated and powerful, being capable of yielding high fidelity reproduction comparable to high fidelity sound reproduction at home. This development has lead to an increasing demand from manufacturers of automotive audio equipment for measurement systems and methods enabling realistic assessment of the sound quality of equipment installed in a car and for comparison of sound quality between different equipment and/or cars. Often the above assessment and comparisons involve A/B comparison listening tests, wherein a panel of test subjects participates, where the test subjects assessed sound quality or other pertinent psychoacoustic attributes of sounds reproduced by a given system in the cabin of a vehicle and compared this assessed sound quality with the sound quality or other attributes similar to the above-mentioned of another system, or of the same system with other parameter settings, in the same cabin of a vehicle. Alternatively the same system with the same parameter settings but installed in two different vehicles may be compared by A/B comparisons according to experimental protocols well known within the art of experimental design.
A/B comparisons and for that matter also other assessment techniques in which test subjects participate are difficult, time-consuming and expensive to carry out in-situ in connection with automotive audio equipment. Specifically, it may be impossible—or at least not advisable—to let the driver of the car participate in such listening tests while actually driving the car. There is therefore a need for simulation systems and methods for realistically simulating the sound fields generated in the cabin of a vehicle, where the simulation takes into account not only the sound reproduction equipment installed in the cabin of the vehicle but also the various background noises in the cabin and—optionally—also competing sounds in the vehicle, such as a person speaking for instance sitting next to the driver, which to some extent may influence the sound perception of a listener in the cabin of the vehicle.